L?enseignement, métier mal aimé

Je me trouve dans l?obligation de réagir à votre article Leçon particulières, nécessité ou escroquerie ? paru dans l?express du 3 octobre 2004. Ainsi le 5 octobre, Journée internationale des enseignants, se présente à vous ?comme l?occasion de (vous) appesantir sur ces enseignants qui se font un joli pactole grâce aux leçons dites particulières mais qui se font en masse?. Vous vous demandez même si c?est de la pédagogie ou de l?escroquerie.

Je trouve totalement aberrant cette démarche de vouloir à tout prix diaboliser les professeurs. Alors que pendant toute l?année, la presse ne cesse de dénoncer (à juste titre d?ailleurs) ces enseignants feignants, incompétents et violents, ne serait-ce pas justement l?occasion de louer les efforts constants de la majorité du corps enseignants ?

Savez-vous seulement dans quelles conditions nous devons travailler ? Avec notre société qui évolue sans cesse, nous nous retrouvons face à des étudiants qui sont tout sauf des moutons dociles prêts à ingurgiter sagement le savoir qu?on leur transmet. Nous devons être à la fois prof, psychologue, mère-père et confident tout en essuyant sans broncher les injures et autres provocations des jeunes. Nous côtoyons des jeunes venant de tout milieu, certains sont déprimés, perdus, voire même avec des tendances suicidaires. Nous les conseillons, les consolons et les traitons comme nos enfants parce que nous les aimons. C?est notre vocation.

Il est certainement dommage de ne pas avoir la reconnaissance qui nous est due. Je peux vous assurer, que la majorité des enseignants du primaire, du secondaire et du tertiaire met beaucoup de c?ur dans le travail qu?elle fait et il est tout à fait injuste de juger le corps enseignant de façon générale en s?appuyant sur certains exemples exceptionnels d?abus.

C?est l?occasion justement en vue de la Journée internationale des enseignants de revaloriser au lieu de démoniser systématiquement la profession dans la presse.

Nitisha HAZAREESINGM

Ben quoi la roupie !

Notre ami Éric (NdlR : voir Haro sur la roupie ! dans l?édition du 22 septembre), has gratified us with quite some meaningful insights on ?ki ete lekonomi? and he is at his best when he allows the economics of the issue to take over the ?facteurs extra-économiques?. Let us assume that Eric makes an effort to overcome his apprehensions (about l?atmosphère électorale) and his aversions (to the present regime) and joins us in requesting the governor to cut short his meditation dans sa thébaïde after his successful coup with the banking bills; he will thus not miss the customary lecturing of our now omnipotent governor reminding us that:

There is only a limited amount you can do to tackle inflation if it is coming from the external side. Monetary tightening would do nothing to tackle the source of inflation in the global commodity markets.

Inflation is very much a relative phenomenon and these external factors are having more or less the same effect on our competitors.

We should not forget to examine the demand side indices (credit to the private sector, import of consumer goods over the last six months, checking accounts and money-market accounts) to assess the inflationary expectations .

The interest rate is determined by the interaction of the Bank of Mauritius (BOM) monetary stance and the inflationary expectations of the primary market dealers. We should give due credit to monetary condition Indices, stupid.

This rather offending note on our want of intellect challenged us to investigate the basic thrust of the BOM?s monetary policy. We had recourse to the IMF.

By using inflation targeting as a nominal anchor and conducting monetary policy indirectly through the interest rate while managing the exchange rate, the IMF noted that the BOM is following the Ball?s methodology for small open economies, that is, conducting policy through some form of Monetary Condition Index (MCI), based on both the interest rate and the real exchange rate.

A MCI is a weighted average of the percentage point change in the domestic interest rate(s) and percentage change in an exchange rate, relative to their values in a base period. In principle, a MCI can be used for policy in various ways. It can serve as an operational target, as an indicator, or as a monetary policy rule.

This methodology gives us our yield curve on inflation and real output and the degree to which inflationary expectations have been anchored over the inflation targeting period.

?MCI can be re-arranged normalizing on the interest rate to obtain a policy rule where the interest rate is set so as to parallel movements in the real exchange rate. The?MCI-based? rule implies setting monetary conditions, so as to correct deviations of inflation from target and of output from potential.? On the basis of the MCI-based rule, we should not grudge our governor if he sees no basis for presently raising the interest rate. But we can disagree on the MCI approach which has its own lot of critics as on such issues as the interest elasticity of our investment schedule, the independence of the Central Bank or a competitive rupee.

But the meditation phase in the thébaïde did help us to appreciate this more balanced view from the IMF on our BOM ? It shows that even in a country with solid institutions, a lack of fiscal dominance, and low external debt, it can take a long time before the central bank has earned sufficient credibility to anchor expectations for low inflation?.

Similarly a more balanced view of a competitive rupee will go beyond mere nominal depreciation of the rupee to track the real effective exchange rate taking into consideration the fundamental equilibrium exchange rate, the output gap and the exchange rate policies of our competitors. Et Méditons!

A.RTon